Television viewing today is linear viewing of transmitted programs. The viewer tunes to a particular channel and the program material, including advertisements, are displayed or recorded (if the viewer has a video tape recorder) in sequence. Television broadcasting includes extensive editing of program material, particularly news broadcasting to fit the programming time constraints so a lot of good material is edited out. It would be highly desirable to enable a viewer to see this material. Video On Demand (VOD) systems require significant dedicated bandwidth and server resources to send selected segments. Receiver storing of high amounts of television and other media content-requires huge storage requirements on receiver.
Broadcasters are faced with the high cost of installing High Definition Television Broadcasting Equipment with an unknown number of customers willing to pay the cost for High Definition television sets. It is, therefore, desirable to provide other ways of attracting more viewers.